Wake Forest University is hosting a series of “listening sessions” for faculty and staff of color that aim to advance inclusion efforts on campus.
The listening sessions come amid ongoing racial tensions on campus, including a protest Monday at which some students decried the “white supremacy” that allegedly runs rampant at the private, North Carolina institution.
“Dear faculty and staff colleagues, this is a reminder about our upcoming listening sessions on inclusion that I am holding for faculty and staff of color over the next several weeks,” stated an April 18 email from Michele Gillespie, dean of the college, to campus employees.
The email, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix, continued:
Here are the upcoming dates and information:
–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Monday, April 22 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)
–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Thursday, May 2 at 11:00 am in ZSR 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)
–For staff who identify as staff of color ONLY: Monday, May 6 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 477
Please know that I have requested that all department chairs provide staff release time to be able to attend a listening session.
Gillespie, as well as campus spokeswoman Katie Neal, did not return several emails over the last few days from The College Fix seeking comment.
As for the campus protest, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that “a coalition of students, faculty and staff at Wake Forest University demanded Monday that university officials immediately begin a zero-tolerance policy for white supremacy after several developments in recent months heightened concerns about racism on campus.”
Today, ARC and @out_winston stood in solidarity against how @WakeForest embodies, emboldens, and perpetuates white supremacy. This goes far beyond our campus walls. #WhiteForest1834 #OnOurTerms #OurC2C pic.twitter.com/4fmWQgknSD
— Wake Forest University Anti-Racism Coalition (@wfuarc) April 23, 2019
The article cites a few examples that have riled the campus community, including a “racist Instagram post” that quipped about building a wall between Wake Forest and its crosstown rival, a historically black university.
Also cited was old yearbook blackface photos, and a photo of Wake Forest students posing in front of a Confederate flag in the 1980s, two of whom are now WFU administrators.
That Instagram post? It was actually a parody. As for the blackface photos, there are few universities across the nation that haven’t found a few of those in old yearbooks. And the two administrators pictured in front of the Confederate flag — they’ve apologized. Their apologies have not been accepted, however. (Protesters are likely furious that one of the deans in the 37-year-old photo has refused to step down from her job despite their demands).
And although the Journal article doesn’t mention it, there was another “racist” incident from February — a student in a cowboy outfit whose lasso was mistaken for a noose.
The group leading the accusations of white supremacy and racism calls itself the Wake Forest University Anti-Racism Coalition. Its members refuse to accept that the “build a wall” post was simply a parody in poor judgment, and have maintained it’s an acute example of racism and white supremacy at the school.
Indeed when a white female peer told them to relax and take a joke, she received death threats. Meanwhile, administrators tried to appease the coalition by launching an investigation into the post. Clearly that didn’t work.
During Monday’s protest, anti-racism coalition members invited WFU President Nathan Hatch and other campus leaders to “publicly apologize for the roles they’ve played in perpetuating WFU’s white supremacy,” according to a tweet from participants. Hatch, who attended the protest, declined their invitation to tell the crowd he’s sorry.
(The other two administrators asked to apologize were the ones in the Confederate flag photo; they were not present at the demonstration.)
Yesterday @wfuarc offered @PresidentHatch, Martha Allman, & Kevin Pittard the opportunity to come publicly apologize for the roles they’ve played in perpetuating WFU’s white supremacy. Of the three, Pres. Hatch was the only one to come, but he still refused to address the crowd. pic.twitter.com/fdfAtbjQqB
— Wake Forest YDSA ?? (@wfuydsa) April 23, 2019
The coalition contends black students at Wake Forest “are facing the same problems encountered by the first black student admitted” to the university way back in 1962.
One professor at the school who asked for anonymity said the situation is absurd right now.
“It’s hard to respond to the ridiculous accusation that Wake Forest tolerates or encourages ‘white supremacy’ and inflicts ‘trauma on students of color,’” the professor said in an email to The Fix. “I question whether it is worth responding to people who use such hyperbolic and hysterical rhetoric. Though the more you placate them, the more they escalate their rhetoric and demands.”
Indeed, a month prior to Monday’s protest, President Hatch had already capitulated to numerous demands regarding the university’s racial unrest, including granting the Black Student Alliance control of an exclusive and highly sought after campus lounge space next to one of the main dorms. He also promised more diversity and “unconscious bias” training.
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I guess white is no longer a color?
Actually, it is the presence/summation of ALL colors spectrally speaking.
Wondering how the lady Dean would handle the situation where a faculty of color white RSVP’d one of her little get togethers?
If you wonder where the likes of those who filled Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mao’s Red Guard came from, look no further than the useful idiots practicing racist segregation while threatening death on any who disagrees with their stance at this university and many other universities across the country. They broach no criticism, they have one goal and they stick to that tenaciously. If these types ever come to power you will see draconian oppression .
Under Pol Pot, the state controlled all aspects of a person’s life. Money, private property, jewelry, gambling, most reading material and religion were outlawed; agriculture was collectivized; children were taken from their homes and forced into the military; and strict rules governing sexual relations, vocabulary and clothing were laid down
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot
Wake Forest, like a spate of “universities*” before it, should apologize for existing; tell everyone no more classes; shutter the campus; turn the buildings over to house the homeless and psychotic; and return the campus to productive farmland. A better use for the grounds – not this fucking nonsense over and over and over.
Perseverating, isn’t is?
* University of Missouri, Hofstra, and Notre Dame among a long list of other institutions of “higher learning” having problems with history, statues, murals, and people of color.
I’m beginning to think that perhaps The Academy has outlived its societal/civilizational usefulness after all.
Any self respecting White family should immediately pull their children out of Wake Forest. Give it to the niggers, the race traders, and assorted others. In a couple of years the place will look like Baltimore,and be out of business. This is the only way to bring these idiots to their knees. It is long past time to fight fire with fire.
Patrick Henry University anyone?
Excellent! The worthless American university system continues to destroy itself…
In a way this is the best kind of red pill for Young white people.
Voluntary segregation is an excellent idea and should be encouraged, especially even for whites. There is NO SHAME in promoting one’s own kind, to the exclusion of others.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Now if we could just repeal the unconstitutional “civil-rights” and “public accommodation” laws and statutes, we might just get somewhere. It is long overdue for true “freedom of association” to be restored for all–even for whites.
As an aside, “Martin Luther King Blvd.” should be avoided by all whites…
Wake Forest today, FSU tomorrow.
Fucking Stupid University???
This is like playing Jenga and every new stunt (move) brings us closer to the collapse.
Good analogy.
30 days. One whole month, out of twelve. For what, you say?
Why, Black History Month, of course.
Where some high percentage of blacks that are honored and celebrated actually dismissed the high odds factor, and yet still rose to successes and acclaim.
What’s stopping those in the modern era? Nothing. But excuses.
The victim mentality mind set that is peddled. There’s big money to be had in that shakedown.
Just ask Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton.
We’ve moved and advanced way past the days when whites expected blacks to sit at the back of the bus, and an uppity woman stood up to him. No more separate water fountains, so what’s their beef still?
Plenty of successful blacks have nicer homes, vehicles, and money to buy them than many middle class and lower class whites nowadays.
Find your goal, and bust your ass working to achieve it.
WTF is so hard to understand? Overcome the crutches you love to lean on. What’s all this shit about EASY?
It’s easier to blame whitey and how the obstacles are still keeping them down. Horseshit.
They’re selling it, to many gullible idiots, some even white, but intelligent ones are not buying it.
Imagine the cries if a White History Month was proposed.
You’d hear that ‘every month’ is W.H.M. or some other BS.
Yeah, but there’s a movement afoot to erase 200+ years of white history in America, tearing down statues and murals of prominent men of European descent who’ve made vital contributions to civilization.
This just proves the well known fact that higher learning at the university level has been corrupted by the Alinskyites, who have pitted groups against each other to foment the destruction of western civilization. and white hetero family values. And it’s seeped into the Corporate culture, worldwide.
And, it is rekindling racism, because the browns so often bitch about the phantom white privilege, the whites with brains just don’t give a shit anymore, and quite frankly, are tired of hearing it. It’s all bullshit, and it stinks worse than a decomposing , dead organism in the hot southern sun.
End of rant.